


sur les marées les plus étranges

by GloriaMundi



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: 10yearanniversary, Alternate History, Community: au_bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:05:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...one of my courtiers, a very capable and kind-hearted lady known as La Voisin, heard of his skills and his ... predicament, and brought him to Paris."</p>
<p>"Brought him from where?" enquires Jack sweetly. "The Caribee? Or regions more ... infernal? That would explain the wig," he adds, to the flunky. </p>
<p>Set in the same alternate timeline as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/45906">Marooned</a>: basically, the second and third movies haven't happened -- oh, and Europe is now wholly French.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sur les marées les plus étranges

Paris is just as Jack Sparrow recalls it from his youthful peccadilloes: to wit, it stinks of piss and perfume, and is full of the French.

Hauled before the French monarch, Louis the fourteenth of that name (no bloody imagination, the French), Jack naturally assumes the persona which will most ingratiate him.

"Capitaine Jacques de Moineau!" announces the minion, and Jack finds himself standing before a bloke decked out in enough lace and gilding to furnish a really fancy brothel.

"Unchain 'im!" says the bloke, gesturing grandly.

Jack stands quiet while the minion does as he's told. It's good to be relieved of the weight of cold iron. He wonders if he might also request refreshments. A drink. A chair.

"I 'ave 'eard of you," says the seated bloke, in bad English. "And you know 'oo I am."

"Your face is somewhat familiar," says Jack, trying to dredge some context from the deepest, darkest holds of his memory. "Have I threatened you before?"

The minion gets up close and personal again. "You are in the presence of His Imperial and Royal Majesty Louis XIV, par la grâce de Dieu, Roi de la France et de l'Espagne, Médiateur de la Confédération Celtique, Roi de l'Italie ..."

The litany drones on. Jack wishes these Frogs would get to the point. They're making his head hurt. Or perhaps that's the apple brandy he imbibed last night. The apple brandy that he purchased with sto-- with _borrowed_ coin. The borrowed coin that bore the profile (albeit a rather more refined and dignified version of it) of the bloke on the fancy chair.

"... _Your_ king," concludes the minion, slightly breathless.

Jack makes a show of staring at this Roi de la France. "Nah," he says at last. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"I am informed," says Louis, "that you 'ave come to Paris to spread dissension and treachery amongst the citizens of La France."

"Course not," says Jack promptly, with his most engaging smile. "Just popped over from the Caribee to pick up the latest novels -- and theological texts, of course -- so's to spread the word, or should I say 'le mot', of the glories of French culture to the rude and backward inhabitants of that place. From which I have popped. To which I'll be popping --" __

_So_ much easier than explaining that he's in Europe (albeit a Europe now almost entirely swallowed up by the fat cochon in front of him) to pay a call on some old friends in Copenhagen, and that -- temporarily absent the navigational knacks of his colleague, Former Commodore James Norrington, who is elsewise engaged smuggling arms to the rebels in what was once Portsmouth -- Jack had taken a wrong turn somewhere in the Channel and decided to drop in on some _other_ old friends.

"Enough," decreed Louis, interrupting Jack's meandering reconstruction of the past few days and nights. "Bring the other captain." This to the flunky, who scurries off. "'e will accompany you on your voyage to that Fountain of which you know."

"Fountain?" says Jack blankly. "Ah yes! The fountains at Versailles are quite delightful." (Jack had read this in a book.) "No doubt your Grace wants another --"

"The Fountain of Youth," enunciates Louis. Flecks of spittle adorn the royal lips. "The fountain is reputed to lie within the forests of Florida, near the city of Fontainbleau -- ah, Capitaine."

"Afternoon, sire," comes a cheerful but not cheering voice that Jack knows well.

"Hector!" he cries anyway. "How nice to see a fellow pirate make good of himself."

"Pirate?" says Barbossa, rising stiffly from his obeisance to King Louis. "Nay, privateer, on a sanctioned mission, under the authority and protection of the Crown."

"That thing on your head," says Jack, wincing, "is not a crown. I take it to be," he squints, "a wig, or at least a distant relative of same. Perhaps the offspring of a wig and a poodle?"

King Louis and _Capitaine_ Barbossa -- perhaps Jack is hallucinating, due to a surfeit of calvados? -- turn identically disdainful looks on him. Their head-gear, he notes belatedly, is also identical.

"But, Capitaine Barbossa," Jack hurries on, "surely you are already an alumnus of said Fountain? I'm almost positively certain that on the occasion of our last meeting, you were suffering from a surfeit of cold steel on the lungs."

"Ah, Jack," says Barbossa, drawing out the syllable in a way that makes Jack wish he were still manacled, so he'd have something heavy to swing at the perfidious old walrus. "Ah, Jack, there are more things in heaven and earth --"

"What Capitaine Barbossa means to say," interjects Louis, clearly piqued at being left out of his own giving-of-orders, "is that one of my courtiers, a very capable and kind-hearted lady known as La Voisin, heard of his skills and his ... predicament, and brought him to Paris."

"Brought him from where?" enquires Jack sweetly. "The Caribee? Or regions more ... infernal? That would explain the wig," he adds, to the flunky.

"Be mindful of the tales, Jack Sparrow," says Barbossa, with a leer. "A man so evil that Hell itself spat him back out."

"Is that so?" says Jack. "Well then, you've no need of me. I'll just --"

"You will sail to Fontainbleau," says Louis, "and you will lead the Capitaine to that Fountain of which you have the map."

"Map?" says Jack, and for once his confusion is honest. (Just thinking the word makes him slightly nauseous.) Unless he's confusing himself. Maybe he's forgotten. Maybe he never knew. Maybe he _does_ know, but --

"Florida," says Barbossa. "We sail at dawn."

"Bon voyage," says Jack brightly. England -- or, to be accurate, the country formerly known as England -- is nice at this time of year, he's heard. The brazier to the right of Louis' fancy chair could serve to obtain egress. And that window over there looks _ever_ so fragile.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Gaby for beta!
> 
> Research includes:  
> [La Voisin, infamous witch / poisoner of the 1680s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Voisin) (I've assumed in this 'verse that she isn't burnt at the stake, _L'affaire des poisons_ never got off the ground, and the Comtesse de Soissons wasn't exiled -- thus, her son Prince Eugene's military capabilities were at Louis' disposal, rather than the Hapsburgs' ...)  
> [French placenames in Florida](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._place_names_of_French_origin#Florida)  
> [POTC4 transcript](http://potc4.weebly.com/)


End file.
